Exhibition: ‘Looking at the Infinite’ by William Alexander. 1st to 11th October

Hundred Years Gallery is delighted to announce, a solo exhibition by William Alexander curated by Miguel Mallol. ‘Looking at the Infinite’ divides the gallery into two stages of a journey, sharing the artist’s experiences, deciphering his symbols, recovering his memories. He likes to live pure experiences, without being conditioned by external factors and presents this exhibition with that at heart.

The painter has been on an exploration within each picture and that is largely left open for the viewer’s experience. The forms exploit abstract and figurative modes, at times tentative, at times bold. The final picture balanced in a new way.

The compositions of his paintings invite the viewer to join the characters and places depicted. The invitation is determined and evident; he wants to tempt you and draw you in. The spectator has only to jump up to be inside the painting. The pictures are composed with layers that give a three-dimensional depth stressed with their dynamic structures sometimes pyramidal, sometimes circular but never motionless. The skies are threatening but he uses the clouds as an excuse to experiment with colours and gives a sensation of other worlds. Unreality within the truth.

William plays with glances, capturing the viewer’s, somewhere between the glances of his characters. They never look directly to the spectator and reinforce the mystery, looking at the infinite. Sometimes concerned, sometimes distracted always intriguing.

The upper floor represents his conception of quintessential spaces, realistic visions that come to his mind as morphed combinations of places. They invite the visitor to come into his unconscious physically and spiritually. Descending the steps the visitor is transported to a surreal world. Beguiling paintings take the visitor to an experience where triangular compositions present a never-ending path to Nirvana.

… or simply to a lake with a wooden floor and a black table, with an undefined conversation.

William Alexander has been a London based artist for 10 years. But when painting he often likes to imagine he is not in London. This he finds to be far cheaper than flying. Two strands of work have dominated his practice, painting and performative cardboard constructions. Both were encouraged at UCE BA Fine Art 1998 – 2001. Ideas of magical realism, and balancing traditional perspective with the modernist flat plane, have fuelled his Paintings. Combining personal, remembered, and imagined visions, which are discovered and resolved in the paintings construction. With the cardboard work he is trying to wake people from their adult spectacle.

Miguel Mallol Bio

He is a curator and art critic based in London. After his degree in Art History, he spent six years in Venice where curated art exhibitions and worked in private and public institutions. He arrived in London in 2011, and started a collaboration with several galleries. He is an art critic with published essays and articles in online art magazines and newspapers. He manages his own exhibition projects and collaborates as curator and art consultant with some art galleries and institutions in UK and abroad.